Tag Archives: beets

Beets are baaaaack. When trying to find some recipes and suggestions for them, I found this nice little interactive graphic. Perfect, because I absolutely feared beets!

I can’t lie, this recipe was very much because I had leftover beets from the previous recipe, and happened to have (and love) sour cream and chives. I also wanted to know what cooking beets on a stove rather than roasting them would do. Turns out it does this:

A very easy side dish, and I preferred it warm. The recipe suggests serving over egg noodles (which I didn’t have on hand), and I suspect it would be even better in that case.

Beets with Sour Cream and Chives

Peel beets, chop into 1-inch chunks. Roughly chop greens. Put both in a saucepan with butter and stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer. Cover, and cook until the beets are tender and the greens wilted, 20 to 25 minutes. Boil off any excess liquid. Stir in sour cream and toss with chives.

My March vegetable is beets! I don’t love them. They’re purple and sweet, and yeah. Sweet. Too much for me. But this is the beauty of this project – challenging myself to try some things. So I did!

Having been pretty unfamiliar with beets, I hadn’t even considered using the greens attached to them. But look how PRETTY. They weren’t bad.

They also look quite different once you scrub ’em clean:

I’m a bit behind on these posts, so I’m just going to cut to the chase. Overall, this was good. I had high expectations that weren’t quite met (because look at the photo from the original recipe), but my suggestions would be to add more cheese. Always. Add more cheese. I may have had a too-much-beet situation, but it seemed like there wasn’t enough of everything else. …Which means I had to much beet. Problem solved!

Roast the beets. Remove from heat and allow to cool, then cut the ends off, slip off the skins and slice across the equator.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil while you stem and wash the greens in two changes of water. Fill a bowl with ice water. When the pot of water comes to a boil, salt generously and blanch the greens for about one minute. (You can also steam the greens until they wilt, one to two minutes). Transfer the greens to the ice water, then drain and squeeze out the water. Chop coarsely.

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a medium skillet, and add the garlic. Cook for about 30 seconds, stirring, until fragrant. Stir in the greens. Stir together for a minute, season the greens with salt and pepper, and remove from the heat.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Oil a 2-quart gratin or baking dish with olive oil. Beat together eggs, salt (about 1/2 teaspoon), pepper, milk, chives and the Gruyère. Gently stir in the greens and beets. Scrape into the gratin dish. Bake 35 to 40 minutes until set and lightly browned on the top. Allow to sit for 10 to 15 minutes before serving. Serve hot, warm or room temperature.